MAL Ep. 4
Wherein our intrepid heroes tracked down the Ass graffiti, fought a mummy, and took Khirg to the circus. Details: 1) Kit told the party that she had located the Ass graffiti on a tomb in the graveyard behind the temple of Alayan. 2) Seven told the party that her friend Jarth thinks he has seen the Ass graffiti on a map and offered to meet them at the Cartographers' guild tonight to look for it. 3) Detective Noyar told the party that the vials they had found in Tell's office turned out to be hair restorer and were not poisoned. 4) The party fetched Vyna the priestess of Fantarin to try to trace the magical portal that the demons in Tell's mansion had emerged from. She explained that essentially all teleportation in the gameworld is interdimensional, making it both dangerous and difficult to trace; however, with an excellent dice roll, was able to confirm that the origin of the teleport came from Malachi, not the Abyss, and further offered that it was short-range (less than 25 miles away) and came from somewhere to the north or west (not over the ocean.) 5) The party spoke with Boren the acolyte of Alayan, who gave them permission to look in the tomb. They found a sarcophagus inscribed with the name "Tave Arakis." Triggering a trap, the party became stuck in a descending chamber with a red-hot floor. Aler's hand was injured pulling a trapped lever and is still damaged. Avery opened the sarcophagus sort of accidentally-on-purpose and nicked some magic items from it while the entombed mummy fought the party, eventually being defeated and returned to the sarcophagus. 6) The magic items turned out to be a wand of Hide From Undead and a scarab that heightens the wearer's ability to sense extraplanar magics. The scarab had the same rune on it as the magic token hidden in Petros' house (the so-called "ass" symbol, although that is probably not its actual name.) 7) Jon called the guard and reported the incident to them. He also sent priestess Beyond Kendra a letter informing her of the objects Avery took and offering to return them to the tomb. Zadkiel went back to Boren to warn him that he was taking the fall for letting the group into the temple. 8) Red visited Morgana the dream seer and Barris the magewright and asked them if either of them knew what had prevented Chavalk from entering the dreamscape. Morgana did not, but said she thought Adriel had done something to block him, since Chavalk seemed to blame Adriel for it. Adriel said she had not done this, at least not consciously. Barris said he was busy fighting the shadow dragon at the time, but opined that the only reason a demon lord would have been unable to gate onto Arthon's pocket dimension would be if someone was blocking him, and if not Adriel, he wondered if it might have been Petros. 9) Red also asked Barris about the Fey the party saw on the dreamscape. He had not seen them, and said he didn't know much about the Fey. 11) The party went to the jailhouse and gave the ducal guard a letter from Red to Petros asking whether he knows what prevented Chavalk from entering the dreamscape. The party also learned that Petros is being held in a magic-suppressed cellblock and that they would not be able to enter this restricted area without a Ducal writ of security clearance. 12) So of course, the weasel promptly stole the ducal guard's writ of security clearance. The party decided it was too risky to use it to enter the jailhouse at this time. 13) Jon went uptown to talk to the Ducal emissary Laisha Overton. She ended up providing no information but instead interrogating Jon instead, learning that the party-- supposedly Tell's personal security team-- had not been providing security the week of his death, did not know his family members' names, and had received no instructions from Tell's wife to investigate his murder. He then returned to Captain Black to warn her about the outcome of this conversation; she did not look happy. 14) Detective Noyar questioned the party carefully about their experience with the mummy, seeming to zone in on the fact that Avery had touched the sarcophagus without checking it for traps or magic first. He was unimpressed by the fact that the tomb and a magic item found in Petros' apartment had the same rune on them, and when asked if he believed Petros was really the kind of person who would have a necromantic magic item in his living room, answered simply "Yes." 15) The group decamped to the circus at 7PM. Refreshments were eaten, fair games were played, Red impressed the crowd with her dinosaur act, and Khirg beat hell out of an illusory demon with a folding chair. 16) A trapeze accident sent two acrobats hurtling to the ground. Jon cast Feather Fall on one and Zadkiel used transposition to take the other's place, absorbing the damage from the fall himself. They introduced themselves as Sahree and Connie. Connie acknowledged not having checked the trapeze before the show as she should have, but Sahree believes there's something more troubling going on since her innate power of flight mysteriously failed at the same time. Aler's investigation revealed that the bolt on one of the trapeze straps seemed to be corroded as if by acid, and found a crumpled scrap of paper in Sahree's wastebasket from somebody named "Jendarion." And there we broke for the day. Onward!